CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

Jamie McCourt, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is taking a step into the art world: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced Friday that she is joining its board of trustees.

LACMA board members are expected to donate at least $100,000 a year to the museum; McCourt and her husband, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, are paying left fielder Manny Ramirez more than that per game.

McCourt will not be the only connection between L.A.’s baseball world and its nonprofit arts scene: Chairing the board at the Pasadena Playhouse is Michele Dedeaux Engemann, daughter of the legendary USC baseball coach, Rod Dedeaux.

Also joining LACMA’s board is Rebecka Belldegrun, president and chief executive of BellCo Capital, a management consulting and investment company. Born in Finland, she’s an ophthalmologist as well as a financier, having earned her medical degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel, after which she did her postdoctoral fellowship in corneal surgery at Harvard.

-- Mike Boehm